Recently one of our clients learned a hard lesson. Some time ago they had co-signed a loan for one of their children. Now, they were purchasing a new home in Hutchinson, MN only to find out when they applied for their mortgage, that their child had been late a couple of times on the loan they had co-signed for. Unfortunately, the late payments affected their credit score and their debt to income ratios were also changed because of the debt they had co-signed for. Fortunately, they were still able to buy their new home. So be careful when co-signing loans for others.